My Life Since Yesterday

Before my last post, which I wrote two days ago, I hadn’t blogged in almost a month. In my last post, you’ll read how positive I’ve been about my anxiety and depression – yay! Funny how fast things can change.

Yesterday, at 12:00 in the afternoon, in the middle of writing an article for my job, I get a call from my husband. I had just texted him, asking if we could put off lunch until 1:00 because I was on a roll. I expected that call to be about lunch. It wasn’t.

“Lauren, I was in a car accident.”

What? What? WHAT? How is that possible? He’s at work…across the parking lot from our house. We live in the parsonage. Why was he driving? The car was in our driveway five minutes ago, wasn’t it?

“Stop, that’s not funny.”
“I’m serious, this isn’t a joke.”

I still don’t believe him. I look out the window. His car is gone. Why didn’t he tell me he left to go out? He always tells me before he drives somewhere.

“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. Our car..well…it’s not.”

An hour and a half later, my husband arrives back at home – without a scratch. Somehow. Someone wasn’t paying attention and rear ended him while he tried to take a left turn, slamming his car into oncoming traffic. If the car in the other lane hadn’t been paying attention, I might have been writing a very different post today.

Thankfully, I’m not. But instead of being happy, instead of thanking God that my husband was safe and the only thing damaged was a stupid hunk of metal, I’m angry. I’m angry this happened in the first place, I’m angry that RIGHT when I was starting to get ahold on my phobia of death and my depression and my anxiety…this happens.

I know that’s not right. I’m living in the what-ifs again. What if the other car hadn’t stopped? What if I had been in the car too? What if our puppy had come with us? What if she had hit him from a different angle? What if he had died.

I have always been terrified of people I love dying in car accidents. When I was a kid, I would cry and cry and cry whenever my parents went out. Everyone thought I just missed them so much, but no – I was worried they would die and never come home.

Now that fear has transferred to my husband. And although my biggest fear didn’t actually come true, it could have yesterday. I didn’t even know he left. I could have received a phone call from a police officer telling me my husband was hit by a distracted driver and died at 12:00 PM July 28, 2016. I could have been a widow at 24.

That didn’t happen. We are both fine. He is fine. I’m fine (physically, not mentally).

How do I live knowing this could happen again at any moment, without any warning, because someone is drunk or distracted or tired or just a bad driver? How do I go on with this fear? How?

I honestly don’t know. I have felt paralyzed since yesterday. I know I should be rejoicing, and thanking God, and enjoying every moment I do have with my husband. But instead, I’ve moped and cried and pushed him away because I’m just so, so scared. This accident happened less than two minutes away from our house. Friends of ours actually passed by the accident and had no idea my husband was the one hit.

How do I function knowing that even two minutes away from our house, we aren’t safe? I was already terrified of driving – now what?

Since things still need to be sorted out, I won’t post pictures of the car just yet. But I will eventually. And you can see how lucky my husband was to get out of that without a single scratch. I just need to keep reminding myself of that.

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6 thoughts on “My Life Since Yesterday”

Sorry to hear about the accident, but glad he’s ok! It’s so fresh right now, I understand your worries. Maybe as time goes on, you’ll feel better about it. It’s awful when the anxiety takes over. Take care!

The law of averages says the likelyhood of another accident actually taking place after such an accident has decreaced . An average person in America (American study) will have an accident every 17.9 years of his or her driving life that includes bumps and scuffs. Of those one in 10100 will be a fatality. I hope my research eases your anxiety. I wanted to throw some logic in there as well as empathy for your anxiety. Have a lovely Sunday. 😇